On the Victory Tour
by MissBellamy
Summary: A few scenes during Catching Fire that I thought could use some more detail.


On the Victory Tour

After the delirious procession of public appearances, cameras, silk dresses, interviews, dancing, parties, and food, as Peeta and I and the rest of our weary entourage trudge back to our train to speed off to the next district, I can feel the tense whirlwind of this so-called _Victory _Tour start to take its toll. This doesn't feel like a victory.

It feels like a funeral procession.

I strip off Cinna's gorgeous, flowing pink dress as the train pulls away from – what district are we in? District 9, maybe? Somewhere not as militant as District 11 turned out to be, but not nearly as barren and solemn as home. I miss the cloudy greys, coal blacks, and mud browns of District 12.

I miss days spent in the green forests with Gale, exchanging jokes and smiles and touches that didn't have to mean anything more than trustful camaraderie. Now on the few occasions we touch, it is strained and full of meaning I can't begin to decipher. It is either full of emotions to great for me to deal with, or not enough of the devotion part of me hopes to win from Gale. I hate the way I go back and forth, wanting Gale and pushing him away. Fighting the fire and wanting to be consumed by it.

I think of the way Peeta touches me. At first, it was alien to me, though not entirely unwelcome. I remember the way I relied on his closeness in the Games, somehow feeling his proximity was linked with my own survival. I didn't want him close to me, but I _needed _him close. I try so hard not to dwell on that first memory, of him willingly taking a blow across the face in order to feed me in my darkest hour, but even I am aware I associate Peeta and his warm strong hands and his clear blue eyes with my own hope.

And considering how we are now caught in this confusing, star-crossed love I keep resisting, it only makes my inner turmoil more pronounced.

If only that sweet, unchangeably good boy wasn't _actually_ in love with me, it would make this whole deception much less confusing.

If only we didn't have all of Panem looking at us, some of them seeing an exploited pair passionate young survivors in love, the rest, it seems, using us as a catalyst for resistance and defiance.

And just as I struggle with the bright sunlight and the blazing flames I see as my muddled feelings for both Peeta and Gale, I struggle with wanting to survive in deception _and_ confirm my own defiance with truth. The world we lived in needed to change. Maybe what I was really trying to suppress was my desire to help it along.

I finally pull myself out of my thoughts and dress in the sinfully soft bedclothes kept for me in my train car. Since we were traveling through the warmer southern districts, all I required was the heather grey shorts and tank top that I suspect Cinna himself made for me, since he knew of my preferences toward simplicity. The cameras and the Capitol could have the made-up, colorful, plucked and polished Katniss who wore fiery, bright dresses to be paraded around. Cinna knew quite well that the Katniss who enjoyed her scarce solitude dressed in earth tones, functional pants, and not a lick of makeup. In fact, had I not been on a train a mere feet away from twenty or so Capitol workers, prep team members, and other strangers, I would be in my underwear. This was but a smaller example of the new Public Katniss I was forced to be and the Private Katniss I had always been.

I sat on the edge of my bed and grabbed the sleep syrup Effie had given me after a third straight day of commenting on the dark, sleepless circles under my eyes. All this distraction of outfits and boys, keeping me from what I was too fearful to think about, the picture that had replayed in the back of my mind since we left District 11. I close my eyes now and see it: that old man forced to his knees in front of his family and friends to have his head blown off, just for whistling his support for Peeta and me. My eyes fill with tears and I know my hands are trembling. I am responsible for his death. I am responsible for the deaths of Thresh, Rue, and everyone else in that arena who didn't make it out while I did. How could I not have defied the Capitol for them much earlier? Why did I wait so long, until I was too desperate and weary and strung out to save anyone but myself and Peeta?

_Peeta._ Again, the confusion. The worry that I was hurting him beyond repair in order to keep everyone I loved alive. The remorse that I was using someone so good for my own designs. The absolute certainty that I couldn't let him die during the Games, and the idea that the Capitol would manipulate me to do it in order to survive was laughable. I remembered the fear in my heart each time I heard a cannon go off, the tension I felt as I looked to the sky each night, the relief to not see his name projected in the stars. That _had_ to mean something. I just couldn't deal with it.

Before I could change my mind, and maybe in an attempt to quiet my thoughts, I gulped down some of Effie's sleep syrup. I let my body fall back against my pillows, staring up at the ceiling of our train. I briefly think the smooth motion of the train should lull me to slumber, but I'm fooling myself, as our high-powered train barely allows us to feel any movement at all.

My mind returns to Gale. To Prim. To Haymitch, and the look in his eyes when I first saw him after the Games, the shock and pride and undeniable relief that _both_ his tributes had made it through alive. I smile as a realize I how I love that drunk bastard.

And just like that, darkness takes over.

Peeta slips quietly out of his room and into the train corridor, bare feet sinking into the plush carpet. It's nothing like the slatted wooden floors of the bakery. It not even like that barely-tread-on carpet in his new house in the Victor's Village. He can only associate that house with loneliness, with the feeling of being haunted. While Katniss's victory allowed her to move her family away from their hovel in the Seam and into a pretty new home, Peeta's family lived above the bakery they ran. His mother insisted that moving away from the bakery was an inconvenience, and of course his father quietly stayed by her side. His oldest brother had already moved away from home, and the middle boy would've volunteered for Peeta at the reaping (fat chance) before he would defy their mother, so Peeta lived in his fancy victor's house all alone. Which was fine with him, really, as it allowed him to escape the feeling that since his mother was certain he would die in the Hunger Games, he had somehow disappointed her by returning home. Besides, it gave him the room he needed to paint and bake for the love of it, and the proximity to Katniss didn't hurt either, even during the long weeks they went without speaking. His family still accepted food and money from him, and it actually made him feel more like the adult the Games had thrust upon him, to live away from his mother's critical, cold eyes.

He padded down the long corridor toward the dining car, hoping that his new habit of prowling at night was less noticeable if a midnight snack was his goal. In reality, he just wanted to keep moving, so he didn't have to face the sleeplessness and nightmarish darkness in the isolation of his room.

He paused outside of Katniss's bedroom, another new habit he hoped no one had caught on to, especially Katniss herself. All he did was listen briefly at the door, check to see if she was sleeping. All was quiet, so he hoped all her worrying and constant tension had finally worn her out. He saw it on her face each morning, how she hadn't slept a wink, and he could feel it in her fingers grasping his during their days in front of the cameras, as if she might slip away for good if she let go. He selfishly hoped she never would; it gave him foolish pleasure that she used him to steady her shaking hands.

He moved away from the door and continued on his way to the dining car, feeling guilty once again. Here they stood, perched on the edge of total chaos, the fate of their entire _country_ seeming to hang in the balance, and as usual his greatest worry was whether she noticed how often he watched her. How the only thoughts he turned to in order to erase the painful memories of watching innocent children die were thoughts of her – falling asleep with his face buried in her hair in their cave, seeing the edges of his vision blur with pain from his infected leg as he kept his eyes trained on her face, the absolute horror he felt when he awoke after the Feast to find her laying next to him in a pool of her own blood. He swear his heart stopped for a moment when he thought she was dead; he was more scared in that moment than any other terrifying moment in the Games. Because as long as she was there, he saw a reason to keep fighting for survival, fighting against the Capitol, fighting his own desires.

He reached the dining car and slipped through the narrow door into the kitchen. Easily located a cinnamon roll in a cabinet. Paced the dining car but couldn't really bring himself to eat, so he ended up putting the roll back rather than waste it. He sat at the window watching the landscape whip past him for a while, stupidly reflecting on his conversation with Katniss from earlier in the evening, when he asked her if she truly had only kissed Gale one time.

She must find him so childish. Everything riding on their shoulders, a nation looking to them for compliance or rebellion, and he's worried about the competition for her heart. He thought about the many, many times they have kissed since the first time in the cave, in mortal peril, his body wracked with infection and fever. Despite his pain, he had been in awe of her, happy for the chance to get to know her even if it ended with him dying painfully in her arms. He never imagined someone ordinary like him could hold her attention – he wasn't a hunter like Gale, didn't have the fight in him to face every confrontation with violence that could be dispelled with conversation.

She had only kissed Gale once, but he had seen the intensity with which they looked at each other. He couldn't help wondering if a kiss shared between them was the same.

When Katniss first kissed him, it was desperate and imploring. He could almost feel her begging him to stay alive, to stay with her, to forgive her for selling the kiss to an audience for something it was not. There was one kiss in the cave that bucked all of that guilt and awareness of appearances, when he felt her let go and enjoy the sensation of their lips moving together, fingers clutching at skin, her whole body arching against him…

He shook his head, clearing that mental image before it had a chance to take hold of him. Since they began the Victory Tour, and had regained their private friendship in order to act out their public romance, her kisses had changed. Yes, they were still in front of cameras or Capitol officials or any other potentially convincible audience, still chaste but hardly perfunctory. They were not the _I love you_ he so longed to hear from her, but perhaps an _I trust you_ or an _I rely on you in a way I've never been able to rely on my family or Gale or anyone else_. And he supposed that was the most he could hope for, for now.

His eyes noted the clock on the wall ruefully. _Way too much time dwelt on kissing, Peeta Mellark. We're on the edge of a damn rebellion, and you spend your time thinking about making out_. He took the door between cars to head back to his own bedroom, feet moving faster than they had on his earlier trip. That's when he heard it.

A wretched sound, halfway between a sob and a scream.

For a moment, he thought he was imagining it, his sleep-deprived mind replaying the noise of a traumatizing death of a fellow tribute. Then he heard it again, and knew with absolute certainty where the sound originated. His feet carry him there before he even registers what he might do, and the screams get louder.

He pauses at her door, unsure if he should invade her privacy but knowing she'd never hear him knock through her nightmare.

He slips into the room and closes the distance to her bed immediately. His heart is heavy with the certainty that he'd always come for her.

I am back in the arena, the spear has just entered Rue's tiny body, only this time I am powerless to react. Marvel yanks the spear out of Rue only to drive it through Thresh's face, and slash the throat of the old man who whistled, cutting of his song. I watch as he transforms into the muttation of himself and one by one, murders my mother, Prim, Gale, Greasy Sae, Madge, and Haymitch. I'm screaming but I can't hear any sound come out. The last person the muttation turns on is Peeta, his leg still badly cut, too weak to defend himself just as I am too weak to help and too weak to fight the sleep syrup and leave this horror behind…

"Katniss! Shh, Katniss, it's only a nightmare. Wake up! Sweetheart, none of it is real, just open your eyes and look at me. Katniss, wake up. Nothing can hurt you here."

It's the gentle hands on my face that bring me out of the unconscious stupor the sleep syrup trapped me in, and when I am finally aware of myself again, my throat is raw from screaming and there is a wracking sob choking me, I'm breathing fast and there are huge wet tracks running down my face. I'm sitting up; fists clench around two handfuls of the sheet that is also tangled around my legs. I feel sweat on my forehead, my neck, everywhere.

My wide, crazy-eyed stare finally rests on Peeta, the concern in his face as his hands move to wipe the tears from my cheeks and then soothingly rub my back, still whispering, "Shh, it's okay now. You're okay. I'm right here."

"I watched them all die, Peeta. I c-couldn't do anything." That's all I get out before that sob in my throat overpowers me and I totally lose it. The tears return and bring with them heart-shattering sobs. I put my hands over my face in a lame attempt to hide myself. Peeta gently pulls my hand away and pulls me in close, putting his arms around my shaking shoulders as I bury my face in his neck and just cry. The girl on fire, a terrified, sniveling mess. I have never let anyone see me like this; why must Peeta always be forced to deal with me when I'm at my worst?

We remain like that for a while, me crying myself out with Peeta whispering soothingly in my ear, rubbing my back, occasionally pressing his lips against the top of my head – though so lightly its as if he's trying to get away with it without me noticing.

Eventually I have no more tears to cry. "You always seem to be around for my finest moments." I say deprecatingly, lifting my head to look at his face. "I could hear you screaming from the hall. I can't sleep without seeing them either … so I've just been prowling." He admits. "All night?" I ask. He nods. "Since we left 11."

It feels better, knowing he understands completely. I see the concern in his eyes, and my own eyes drop to wear his hand is now holding mine in my lap. If only I could manage to love this boy properly, to convince President Snow and Peeta himself, so no one would have to die. But I'm barely sixteen, and have found very little use for being liberal with my emotions since the age of eleven. Though I don't dwell on it, I know with certainty things would be different if my father had never died and I didn't see the way love could kill a person.

I know with just the same certainty that I can't be alone tonight.

"Stay with me." I whisper to Peeta, hating the weakness in my voice, "Like the cave?"

He nods wordlessly, tucking my blankets back around me as I lay back down. He gracefully lifts himself over me to get in bed next to me. I lift my head up so he can slide his arm underneath, and inch closer to him in what I hope is an unpathetic manner. He smirks at me and pulls my smaller body in close to his broader one, gently resting my head on his chest.

I push my cold feet against his impossibly warm ones, and I start to feel safe.

"Goodnight." I murmur as exhaustion and warmth and the last remnants of sleep syrup start to take hold.

"Goodnight, Katniss." He whispers back.

Katniss's breathing has started to even out, the erratic inhalations of choked emotion overcome by sweet unconsciousness. Her small feet push against Peeta's. He can feel her thigh pressing into his under the covers, only the material of his pants separating their skin. One of her hands rests on his collarbone, and he can feel small puffs of breath against his face.

He tries not to dwell on how strange it is, to hold everything he could ever need within arm's reach. To be able to glide his hand down her back, feeling along her shoulder blades, the graceful slope of her lower back. He feels where the edge of her shirt has ridden up just an inch or so and steals his hand away quickly before she notices his fingers brush her skin. Sure, he's cuddled up in bed with her, and _sure_, she's not exactly shying away from contact, but he's constantly worried of pushing the limits of intimacy with this girl, as if she were a tightly strung bow. One false twitch and she'd snap back at him, painfully.

_She just needs comfort. It isn't that she needs _you_, she simply needs _someone_. You of all people should understand the need to banish the nightmares_, he reasons with himself, even though he knows since he is impossibly in love, her presence would be the only one that matters. He prays that it is him she needs.

Briefly he tries to imagine Gale in his place, and though the idea is abhorrent and wrong to him, he wonders if she has imagined such a thing. They have been allies – okay¸friends – since childhood, but does that relationship transition into adolescent romance without any residual awkwardness? He knows without a shadow of doubt, for Gale it does not. He wishes Katniss were so easy to read. Not that he can't immediately tell when she's lying, and it was laughably easy to predict her schemes now that she had fooled him once into believing she was madly in love with him (really, he was all too willing to believe it), it's just that about the personal things, this girl changes her mind faster than Haymitch could throw back a shot.

His hand reaches up to stroke her hair, for once free of its daily braid, and he allows the soft strands to slip through his fingers. He smiles to himself, thinking his girl on fire is so much sweeter and less intimidating in her slumber. She looked younger, and though she would hate it, vulnerable. All he wanted was to keep her safe. Allow her to choose.

He remained there guarding her until the first weak rays of sunlight illuminated the window.


End file.
